February 13, 2013

Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said he and Bill Callahan “share values” about offense and that the veteran coach has influenced the offense since joining the organization last year.

That could mean a smooth transition to Callahan as the play-caller next season.

“Bill wouldn’t be on the staff if we didn’t have shared values,” Garrett said Wednesday in a press conference at Valley Ranch. “My respect for him as a person and a coach is off the charts. He’s an outstanding football coach. The biggest thing for me is the transitioning. He’s been with us for a year now, he understands what we’ve done on offense, he’s brought a lot of stuff to our offense and just the comfort level that he has with what we’re doing throughout our whole offense and the comfort level our players will have going forward.”

Garrett said he gave Callahan, hired a year ago as offensive line coach, a big say in how the Cowboys run the football.

“Bill was our run game coordinator last year, and that’s the one thing that I’ve been adamant about with each of the offensive line coaches that we’ve had – going back to Tony Sporano and Hudson Houck and through Bill Callahan, I mean, their influence has been strong. I want to run the football the way they want to run the football. So his influence has been strong.”

Garrett said he and Callahan are talking about the “mechanics” of a new play-calling arrangement.

“The way we have done things around here, candidly, is there’s been a primary play-caller, which has been me, but these have always been collective exercises,” Garrett said. “How you game plan, and the communication you have during the game, both in the run game and the pass game. Bill was very involved in the play-calling part with the run game this year. What we’re trying to do is work through the mechanics of that, and as we get close to playing the game, we can fill you in more specifically.”